Comment Among Us a explosé

Among Us was developed by Innersloth, a small American studio with no advertising budget, and launched in June 2018.

• The game was ignored by most players with only about fifteen connected players at launch • There was generally only one active lobby at a time • New players had to wait for previous matches to end to find opponents

The creator reduced the minimum number of players to 4 (1 impostor and 3 crew members) so matches could start more easily.

One of the developers, who had 25,000 Twitter followers from previous flash game successes, regularly promoted the game to his community, bringing the average up to 30 players.

Streamer Kevin Shea discovered the game by chance on Itch.io, an indie game discovery platform, and streamed it with friends in late 2018.

• The game grew from dozens to hundreds of average players • Over 50% of players at any time of day were Korean throughout 2019 • This influx of players allowed the game to survive until 2020

Kevin Shea's influence established a stable player base that sustained game development for over a year.

This period consolidated the game's mechanics and demonstrated its potential to a devoted community, setting the stage for the viral explosion to come.

• January 2020: British YouTuber Jacksepticeye discovers the game by chance • February: Player spike triggers a 50% Steam promotion • March: Game launches on Steam with the discount, attracting wishlists • June: Steam offers to include Among Us in Summer Sales at 75% off

Thousands of people who wishlisted the game in March receive a notification announcing it at 75% off, prompting them to buy.

Sodapoppin, with 3 million Twitter followers and 1 million YouTube subscribers, plays the game with other influencers, exposing Among Us to tens of millions of people.

• The world is locked down due to COVID-19, seeking online entertainment • The game is offered at reduced price at the optimal moment • The combination of all these factors creates an exponential explosion of players

One month after arriving on Steam, Among Us shattered the charts by selling more copies per day than Fall Guys and ranked in the top 5 most-played games on Steam, a position usually held by industry giants.

• The game was played by one of the world's biggest influencers when Europe and America were encouraged to stay home • It's a game with large teams allowing influencers to play with many other influencers, multiplying the potential audience • There's no mechanical skill, almost no rules to learn, making the game universally accessible

Solving a mystery with friends appeals universally, meaning almost 100% of influencers on the planet are potential customers for the game, from hardcore gamers to casual content creators.

• The art of lying has been cultivated since the dawn of time and displays infinite nuance • You can endlessly improve at Among Us • The game perfectly embodied the principle of blurring the line between accessibility and depth

Among Us didn't explode by being boring: the game is objectively good. Every time it received help from major influencers, it kept the vast majority of newly discovered players.

• With Kevin Shea, Jacksepticeye, and Sodapoppin, the game retained most of its newly acquired player base • This retention proves that gameplay quality was sufficient to convert new players into lasting fans

Without money for an advertising campaign, it's extremely discouraging to develop games, because even a good game can be condemned to remain in obscurity.

Among Us's success is not intentionally replicable: it's a phenomenon that occurred only because a complete set of conditions, some of them truly improbable, were met at the same time.